Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday April 16, 2014 @02:08AM
from the cats-and-dogs-governing-together dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from Princeton University and Northwestern University have concluded, after extensive analysis of 1,779 policy issues, that the U.S. is in fact an oligarchy and not a democracy. What this means is that, although 'Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance,' 'majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts.' Their study (PDF), to be published in Perspectives on Politics, found that 'When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.'"

This is *before* those limits were lifted. As a citizen, I'm looking forward to seeing the power of the wealthy further cemented in this country, and so exquisitely draped in the pretense of democracy that my fellow citizens believe themselves empowered. It's gonna get better! (For the wealthy). How exciting for those of us who imagine ourselves upwardly mobile within the American caste system.

This is *before* those limits were lifted. As a citizen, I'm looking forward to seeing the power of the wealthy further cemented in this country, and so exquisitely draped in the pretense of democracy that my fellow citizens believe themselves empowered. It's gonna get better! (For the wealthy). How exciting for those of us who imagine ourselves upwardly mobile within the American caste system.

George Lakoff explained how it works in his book Don't think of an elephant [amazon.com]. People don't vote for what's best for them (using logic). They vote their identity, and the conservitives have made excellent use of language to frame the debate in such a way that poor people actually feel good about removing social services, by voting Republican. Tax cuts are framed as "tax relieve", only relieving the state of so much money it can't afford social programs anymore.

In their view social programs are bad for poor people, as poor people deserve to be poor, and this punishes them for not working hard enough. Rich people deserve to be rich. They are clever, otherwise they wouldn't be rich. If poor people want to be rich, let them work for it. Poor people are needed to serve the rich. (This is not my view to be clear).

Another important frame: Pro Life! Abortion is bad, because it undermines the power of the father in the family. When a teenager becomes pregnant, it's her own fault, and she should live with the consequences. She didn't listen to her father, who is the moral authority and who decides what's good and what't wrong. When an adult woman decides to have an abortion because she wants to work on her career, she undermines this strict-father-morale as well. A career is not for women - they should stay at home and raise the children. Pro Life is not about life, it's about male dominance. Pro Life is not about the life of that baby - they don't care about that baby that probably would have little value to them. Pro Life is not about life, because it's OK to physically attack and occasionally kill people who work at abortion clinics. Casualties of war!

How can you be against life? Are you for real that you want more taxes? Vote Conservative!

There is a theory, used in South Africa to help ease the transition away from Apartheid, called Spiral Dynamics. It models human development as going through about 6 worldwiews, each with their own sense of morality/justice/values. It spans history, so the first worldview is of a hunter gatherer. The most recent worldview is of an educated Western post-modern cultural relative intellectual interested in minority rights and the environment. Anyway, between those two worldviews you have the view of warlords, then the view of religious-empire-order, and then the view of individualistic achievement/playing to win in a competitive world individualism. That last one by the way was the start of modernity and freedom in the French revolution sense of the word, it recognises that EVERY human is equal and has their won brain and is an equal player and should not be oppressed by religious-empire-orders (Communism is similar in that it is also a single empire order which oppresses individual freedom and ingenuity).

OK so, this relates to politics because the politicians do, as you say, simply have to FRAME a proposal in language which RESONATES with the worldview of the people being targeted. The point is that when you are born, you are basically at the hunter-gatherer level. Culturally and intellectually and morally you then grow up and somewhere along the way, tend to stop or focus on one of the worldview levels. If you are currently living in a Nigerian bad land, you're probably hovering around warlordism. That's fine, that's just the most appropriate adaption to your environment. A pomo sensitive type will merely become a target in that environment. So whatever level people are at, that's just the best they can manage. Anyway, Spiral Dynamics might not be 100% true, but it is a useful distilling of some of the major differences.

So yes, the tradition-valuing, we are one nation, one flag, NCIS TV show committed marine of honour and purpose, holy order type worldview is about half of America, I forget the exact percentage they estimate, and so anything that speaks about being a responsible individual who self-sacrifices their own selfish needs for the sake of serving the lager community, any issue framed in that way, will gain a lot of voter approval. People like W. Bush, Al Gore, and Hilary Clinton know all about Spiral Dynamics and such theories (various institutes and advisors etc.) and it is anybody's guess how much they are using them.

"...because the politicians do, as you say, simply have to FRAME a proposal in language which RESONATES with the worldview of the people being targeted..."

Sadly, you do not know the US of A.

The politicians inside the United States of America do not need to frame any proposal to the people, all the need to do to get anything done is to use their influence to rally a portion of semi-elites to his or her cause, and through the butterfly effect , it is done.

Case in point - United States attacking Iraq

When George Bush decides to attack Iraq, he did not need to get the approval from the Americans. All he did was to rally the world community (elites from different countries) to his cause, and when he got the support, off goes the Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

I was from China, and I still remember how hard the Chinese Communist Party had to rally their own people to support their decision to send troops into Korea to fight the Korean war.

In contrast to what George Bush did - the Chinese government, under Mao, almost tapped into all the resources it could muster, to get the people into the mood.

In a way, at least back in the time of the Korean War, the Communist government which rule China was more attuned to their own people, than George Bush, to the Americans.

What you call 'spiral dynamics' sounds a lot like Machiavelli's theory of political history, which he laid out in his book The Prince.

Machiavelli postulated that Monarchy tends to devolve into an aristocratic and oligarchic Tyranny, Tyranny is supplanted via revolution by Democracy, Democracy eventually (and inexorably) falls into Anarchy, and Anarchy is solved when one person rises to lead the masses and forms a Monarchy.

History is cyclic. The question is whether we can break the cycle, and do we want to.

As long as the majority of people believe abortion, and gay rights and smoking are the litmus test of politics, we will continue to slip farther away frow constitutional rights of life libery and the pursuit of happiness, which does't really require democracy. Rather, a people not so gullible.

Another important frame: Pro Life! Abortion is bad, because it undermines the power of the father in the family. When a teenager becomes pregnant, it's her own fault, and she should live with the consequences. She didn't listen to her father, who is the moral authority and who decides what's good and what't wrong. When an adult woman decides to have an abortion because she wants to work on her career, she undermines this strict-father-morale as well. A career is not for women - they should stay at home and raise the children. Pro Life is not about life, it's about male dominance. Pro Life is not about the life of that baby - they don't care about that baby that probably would have little value to them. Pro Life is not about life, because it's OK to physically attack and occasionally kill people who work at abortion clinics. Casualties of war!

This doesn't seem right. I'm not familiar with pro-life rhetoric being about abortion undermining patriarchal power in the family, usually it seems to be a general attack on women, often no different than opposition to contraception. Usually it seems to be about undermining female sexuality by increasing pregnancy risk, which may affect patriarchal authority coincidentally but not specifically. The other angle seems to be a more general cultural conservatism that sees non-reproductive sexuality as a general contributor to moral decline -- with pregnancy as a non-risk (through contraception and abortion), there's no reason for marriage as a necessity for sexuality since there is no pregnancy.

I think it's even been argued that contraception and abortion actually contribute to male promiscuity since they also free men from the responsibility burden of pregnancy. It wouldn't surprise me if this doesn't tie into some radical feminist critiques of contraception/abortion as having an inherently patriarchal nature, since it eliminates any male responsibility for their sexuality and reduces women's value to that of merely a transactional sexual partner at best When the classist and gender discriminatory nature of economic relations is taken into account, women are further reduced to near-prostitute status, being obligated by both economy and lack of male sexual accountability. Of course I'm not advocating this as being true, but it's not hard to tie it together with this kind of rhetoric.

This is *before* those limits were lifted. As a citizen, I'm looking forward to seeing the power of the wealthy further cemented in this country, and so exquisitely draped in the pretense of democracy that my fellow citizens believe themselves empowered. It's gonna get better! (For the wealthy). How exciting for those of us who imagine ourselves upwardly mobile within the American caste system.

George Lakoff explained how it works in his book Don't think of an elephant [amazon.com]. People don't vote for what's best for them (using logic). They vote their identity, and the conservitives have made excellent use of language to frame the debate in such a way that poor people actually feel good about removing social services, by voting Republican. Tax cuts are framed as "tax relieve", only relieving the state of so much money it can't afford social programs anymore.

In their view social programs are bad for poor people, as poor people deserve to be poor, and this punishes them for not working hard enough. Rich people deserve to be rich. They are clever, otherwise they wouldn't be rich. If poor people want to be rich, let them work for it. Poor people are needed to serve the rich. (This is not my view to be clear).

Another important frame: Pro Life! Abortion is bad, because it undermines the power of the father in the family. When a teenager becomes pregnant, it's her own fault, and she should live with the consequences. She didn't listen to her father, who is the moral authority and who decides what's good and what't wrong. When an adult woman decides to have an abortion because she wants to work on her career, she undermines this strict-father-morale as well. A career is not for women - they should stay at home and raise the children. Pro Life is not about life, it's about male dominance. Pro Life is not about the life of that baby - they don't care about that baby that probably would have little value to them. Pro Life is not about life, because it's OK to physically attack and occasionally kill people who work at abortion clinics. Casualties of war!

How can you be against life? Are you for real that you want more taxes? Vote Conservative!

I'm a liberal (leftist, socialist, whatever. Farther left than the democrats for sure) and I'm pro-life. I have no interests in controlling women's reproductive lives, but as a Catholic I believe life begins at conception, and abortion is murder. Put any other false motives in my mouth, but the truth is, I'm pro-life because I'm anti-murder.

I think "pro-life" is the better term, as I'm not politically against abortion. I think abortion should be legal because yes, you have a right to your own body, even if that kills someone else. For instance, if you have a disease that can only be cured by a bone marrow transplant from me (the only one of 7 billion people you're a match for) neither you nor the state has the right to force me to give you my bone marrow. And let's say I choose not to. For any reason or no reason at all. But, my choice for wha

Not true. Catholics do not legislate their morality (abortion is a special topic as that involved murder), and economically, we're redistributionists. There are a lot of liberal Catholics. Please do not get us confused with the fundies. We're nothing like them.

"What is required of the child is obedience, bacause the strict father is a moral authority who knows right from wrong. It is further assumed that the only way to teach kids obedience --- that is, right from wrong -- is through punishment, painful punkishment, when they do wrong. This includes hitting them, and some authors on conservative child rearing recommend sticks, belts, and wooden paddles on the bare bottom. Some authors suggest this start at birth, but Dobson is more liberal. "There is no excuse for spanking babies younger than fifteen or eighteen months of age" (Dobson, The New Dare to Discipline", 65)."

Seems like a perfectly reasonable description, since he said only *some* Republicans believe that, and contrasting it with the Dobson quote.

He might be wrong about some things, but the American Dream(TM) lie is well understood. The UK had a its own version called Thatcherism. The idea that anyone can make it if they work hard. Well, maybe they can if they get really lucky, but for the majority they won't get rich in their lifetime. Not to say that they will have bad lives or anything.

The problem is people vote for tax cuts for the rich because they think they will be rich one day. They vote based on ideas that only really affect the rich because they think they are upper-middle class, when in fact they are working class. The majority of working class people in the UK think they are middle class, it's that bad. My aunt was a school cleaner and my uncle a factory worker, they thought they were middle class.

American politics from outside seems framed in the terms of what politicians are doing about forcing your own world view on other people who do not hold that world view. In other words politics is framed as a religious war on unbelievers. In this way it is no different to the Iranian theocracy for example.

And that's not really all that accurate. "From the outside" it becomes trivial to ignore enough elements to make another country's problems seem trivial and one dimensional. This is exactly where the USA's predilection for invading countries comes from. In reality, political dogmas drive only a portion(a largish one though it may be) of our broken political process.

Citizen's United was in 2010. That was the primary one declaring money as speech and establishing the Super PACs - it lifted any limits on contributions to political organizations that are technically separate from the politicians. This enabled a wealthy donor to contribute as much as they wished to the "Elect Politician X Organization" (Super PAC), though there were still limits on what the wealthy donor could contribute directly to the politician's campaign fund. There are some small differences between a Super PAC and the regular campaign fund, but the distinction is fairly trivial. In essence, Citizen's United was the decision that removed what remaining guards we had against the Oligarchy that the paper is talking about. Again, that was in 2010 and was doubtless factored into this analysis.

I suspect that what you're talking about is the recent McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission decision which lifted another limit, this one pertaining to contributions to campaign funds, not Super PACs. This one was just a couple weeks ago. So, in other words, I think you and the GP are talking about two different decisions. He's talking about Citizen's United, and you are talking about McCutcheon.

In times of past, when it took weeks and months to communicate between far away places (New York, Chicago, Los Angeles) it made sense to structure the political organization of this country as a railroad organization. Today, it does not.

What we need to do is simple: We need to define, in simple print, that corporate fictions are not in fact citizens, and as such, do not have political freedoms or civil rights as such.

The concept if a corporate fiction as a person is a bit ridiculous anyway. A corporation can engage in activities that kill people (against the law) but they cannot be imprisoned. Finding General Motors (say) criminally liable for something that they have done corporately is a joke. They are already immune from such prosecution and bringing criminal charges that stick against board members or management is a very difficult thing.

If corporate entities cannot participate in the democratic process; there is no proxy for voting in a general election. We should formalize this and extend it so that corporate fictions simply cannot make political contributions of any size whatsoever. If management has strong political feelings, let the members make a personal contribution in their own name and not from corporate funds. If a CEO wants to contribute millions to a political candidate, well, they're paid enough to write the check. If a corporation feels strongly about a political issue, they can encourage (but not require) that their employees write their own checks to whatever political cause is extant. A vote, and a political contribution, should only be permitted to come from someone who can be demonstrated to be a living, breathing person and not some vacuous entity dreamed up by invisible attorneys.

This moves us back to the "one man, one vote" ideal our forefathers envisioned. Right now, we're moving ever closer to merchantilism and "One Dollar, One Vote" -- which, in my humble opinion, is not a good thing at all.

Yeah, we should go back to the Fairness Doctrine, that requires BOTH sides of every issue to be covered.

I find it massively insulting that we are consistently led to believe that issues only ever have TWO solutions. The structure of the Fairness Doctrine reveals its fatal flaw, and in fact the fatal flaw of American Democracy today; that we're all supposed to line up behind one of TWO teams.

The Fairness Doctrine was an evil impediment to free speech, as far as I'm concerned it should never return.

You are being naive in your definition of wealth and are in fact completely very wrong in this. But don't feel ashamed, many other middle/upper class around the world have this wrong also and that is why they vote republican (in the US) or for other neo-con parties that do not actually represent their interests in practice - despite their rhetoric. (studies showing that many in the middle classes believing they will be wealthy soon and thus voting as if they were)

You are talking about "upper class" and not the sort of wealthy they are talking about in this article.

The problem with the above mentality (i.e. "I've got mine, fuck you") is that neo-cons are NOT all that good for the upper class. They are only good for the super-wealthy, the finance companies/banks etc. Being well off you will avoid the worst of the symptoms of a country led by their dogma, but you will not be better off.

So such people are not just greedy, they are stupid and greedy - the two usually go together in my experience.

And the article is not a surprise to anyone who reads the news even badly.

You are being naive in your definition of wealth and are in fact completely very wrong in this. But don't feel ashamed, many other middle/upper class around the world have this wrong also and that is why they vote republican (in the US) or for other neo-con parties that do not actually represent their interests in practice - despite their rhetoric. (studies showing that many in the middle classes believing they will be wealthy soon and thus voting as if they were)

This has been going on for a long time. Percentage wise very few Americans actually owned slaves yet it's estimated that somewhere between half a million and 1.5 million men served in the Confederate Army. That's a large number of people willing to die to protect the rights of the rich to own another human being. I have little doubt that if there were some kind of mythical Civil War today in the US that millions would willingly lay down their lives to protect the money of the rich and receive absolutely nothing in return for their willingness to fight and possibly die for somebody else's money.

The American civil war was about much more than slavery--in fact, the slavery thing was pretty much just a PR tool Lincoln used to solidify public opinion in the north.
The real issues were about state's rights, self governance, secession, and consolidation of federal power. It's good to know that mass "education" is successfully keeping people confused about this.

No, the civil war was about slavery. There were other issues also (like tariffs), but the primary issue was slavery.

That point is extremely obvious if you read the primary sources in this case, which include declarations of independence by the states which were seceding, in which they explain very clearly what their main motives were.

There was no other issue at the time so important that it would have caused a civil war. There was no other issue which would have caused the southern states to secede. Although there were other disagreements, such as disagreements about tariffs, those disagreements were nowhere near so intense that they would have provoked a secession or civil war.

the slavery thing was pretty much just a PR tool Lincoln used to solidify public opinion in the north.

You are repeating a historical fiction propagated at the end of the 19th century and which continues today in some conservative circles. It's a strain of thought which arose long after the civil war was over. It started with the publication of The Rise And Fall Of The Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis. It was an attempt to downplay the importance of slavery to southerners, and to portray slavery as a benign institution anyway which was done primarily to benefit of the enslaved. It's considered a crackpot theory among all serious historians, but it inspired a movement in the south which continues today.

There was a long prelude to the American civil war. Tensions had been building for decades. In fact, the civil war had already started (for all intents and purposes), in bleeding Kansas [wikipedia.org] and other places, where fighting had already broken out, years before the formal beginning of the civil war. All this happened long before Lincoln was president. The issue was slavery, and both sides said so in no uncertain terms.

It's good to know that mass "education" is successfully keeping people confused about this.

Sadly, you're the confused one. You've been misled by a crackpot revisionist group.

The true measure of a country is its wealth distribution. The average person's life is better as the wealth distribution increases and vice versa. There are numerous ways to accomplish this but certainly a system where the wealthy can alter the laws to suit themselves is not a valid method.

Whoever upmodded you needs to do fact checking instead of just blindly doing so.

You are wrong or lying. Study talks about "wealthy or elites" referring to the top 0.1% or so.

Pretty much any graduate working in tech, unless he's one of the tiny portion of top CEOs is completely outside this scope. Even your average CEO or top manager will likely not be included in this definition - they are simply not wealthy or powerful enough to fit.

You have it backwards. The republic is what we (supposedly) had before being all but completely subverted. The problem with direct democracy, which doesn't have any of this "unrepresentative representative" nonsense, is that it scales very, very badly.

You lift the limits on campaign spending, declare that corporations have the right of political speech and are now surprised that the rich people have all the say?

I will remind you that even the summary suggests the average American has near zero say in lifting anything in terms of American policy. I'd also like to suggest that people find it easier to be angry at losing than making an effort to win. Directly related somehow.

Sorry, but no, you're not. You are not given the opportunity to vote for your representatives and leaders. You're given a false dichotomy, the illusion that you have a choice while in fact the system is rigged and perverted to the point to ensure that you actually have none. The main reason why there is no threat of violence or worse for making the wrong choice is simply that you CAN NOT make the wrong choice. You are simply not given an option that could be considered the wrong choice for those in power.

The effort necessary to get a candidate elected that is not from either side of The Party is so overwhelming that it is near impossible to get it done. The last time a third candidate took a state in a presidential election was Wallace in 68, before that Thurmond in 48, Follette (if you want to count that single state) in 24 and Roosevelt in 12. Who was, btw, also the ONLY one of the four to even come close to playing a role other than the comic relief. It's been OVER A CENTURY since someone from a group that's not part of The Party came even CLOSE to being elected as president.

What? Senators and congressmen you say, they come from independent groups and parties sometimes? Sure. Why not? It's not like one or a handful of them can put a dent into the majority held by The Party. It's a little known fact that such groups and "parties" existed in Communism, too. They were called Bloc parties [wikipedia.org] and served as the same kind of comic relief as the indies in congress and senate, as a show token for the democracy theater.

I'm from Europe. I know what it is like if you actually DO have parties with diverging world views. There are countries where you actually have everything from far left to far right to choose from. When you have such a variety, you tend to not even notice the, from an Euro point of view, rather subtle difference between Republicans and Democrats. Every time I watch a debate between two of your candidates, it feels like the host is trying very, very hard to come up with questions that would not get the same answer from them. You get to hear the most outlandish topics being discussed because those are simply the ONLY petty rubbish they don't agree on.

That's democracy? Really? When I think of the US and the term "separation of power", the only thing I come up with is that the corporations must not vote, so they get to choose who you may vote for by contributions. You in turn get no choice of candidates, your job is just to pick the lesser evil.

I'm from Europe. I know what it is like if you actually DO have parties with diverging world views. There are countries where you actually have everything from far left to far right to choose from.

And if you look at certain parts of Europe (ie, anywhere not the UK) you have proportional representation where people with politically diverse views actually have to work together to get stuff done. The problem is that makes for a "weak" government because it tends to be more responsive to the public who elected them. Can't have that:)

Ahhh America, Rome 2.0. Now I just wonder who will be our Marius to kickstart our whole no limitations on terms, and Augustus to finally rule on us as princeps and make the transition from republic to empire official...

What if I practiced my amendment rights by giving a judge $100 of free speech during a trial? I would have my ass behind a prison door faster than you can say bribery! But if a corporation wants to donate HEY ITS FREE SPEECH YOU HAVE IT TOO

I have no sympathy. In fact, many of you cheered it as a sign of greatness and freedom that America was doing this. Your allies, however, were fucking appalled. Let

Let me finish that sentence for you:

Option 1: "Let me just say that I laugh at your situation, secure in my knowledge that nothing like that can happen where I live."

Option 2: "Let me see this as a warning that despite rule of law, foundational documents, and all the trappings of representative government, this could still happen here. I will be especially on guard against those that try to subvert my country."

No that is not what oligarchy means, it simply mean that the power of rule lie with a small group of people which can be judges but it can also be the wealthy, military, corporate. If campaign spending is a deciding factor decide on who the next policy makers will be and they are put into power by funding from the wealthy the likelihood of policies favoring this small minority greatly increase.

In many European countries, citizens' rights are upheld, they are not treated like cattle for the crime of wanting to travel through an airport, they are not taxed to breaking point to fun pointless wars that enrich a tiny, politically connected clique, they have access to free education and healthcare and they have faster access to the internet.

You can argue about definitions of "aristocracy" and who is or is not in de facto control until you're blue in the face. However, the outcomes speak for themselves.

In most democracies there are usually two parties that most people vote for (Both of which are different shades of shit).

Citation needed!

Most (European anyway) democracies are parliamentary democracies with 4-6 major parties plus some number of smaller/fringe parties. Typically, no one party has a majority and coalition governments are the norm.

While this is true, there are generally two large parties that garner 60-80% of the seats, and these tend to be centrist parties with the same sort of minor differences that we see in the USA between Republican and Democrat. One drawback to the parliamentary system that I've seen is that fringe parties can have a disproportionate influence since neither centrist party has enough votes to form a majority on its own and needs to bribe them to join a coalition. At least, this is what I saw in Israel, and bribe is precisely the correct word. At one point it got so sickening that the two major parties formed a coalition instead.

When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for,

I'm curious about what "organized interest groups" were "controlled for". Did that include things like the AARP and the NRA, the two largest public pressure groups in the country? How about the various organizations called The Tea Party?

When a lot of people at the grass roots level want to redirect the government, they often join together and form orgizations to lobby for their interests. These groups a

I know it will come as a great shock and surprise but there are some in the world (although it appears fewer every day) who believe that study, evidence and experimentation are required to ascertain the truth of things.

This is as opposed to "common sense", listening to talk-back radio, speaking at the TV from your armchair and talking shit with your mate over a beer.

This is a fairly common pattern for studies. You have a strong suspicion. Then you do a study, which is to collect and analyze the data systematically. That way, a principled debate may be had and further efforts may refine our understanding. Without basing it on data and method, it will just be a shouting match; your opinion against mine. Politics & ideologies vs. science.

The common understanding of science - that scientists do studies without some an expectation of results at some level, and simply wa

Well, there have been rebellions and revolutions by "men of the people", but they are usually not too numerous. Right now, though, this is about the only kind of revolution that could happen. Everyone powerful certainly doesn't want a revolution. Everyone wealthy is in the aforementioned group. Wealth and power have become synonymous. So what's left is keeping the masses from finding someone out of their own group to rally behind.

That's why we need total surveillance. Such a person must be identified early, before he can develop a following. Do you think we'd have so many problems if we identified MLK earlier, slandered him early enough, before people were able to see through it? Character assassination is much more efficient than actual assassination. It's far quieter and you will not create a martyr, which is about the worst case that could happen. Of course, for it to work out, you have to find the person early, as long as people would still rather believe your lies about him. Once they know him, it's harder to convince the masses.

Keep belittling the power of people, forget about Rosa Parks and many others who through civil disobedience have change this country for better.

Rosa Parks was not a "spontaneous uprising". While in American schools her story tends to be misportrayed as a case of a solitary dissident (an issue fascinatingly explored in educator Herbert Kohl's Should We Burn Babar? [amazon.com] ), in reality she was active in the local NAACP and her and her fellow civil rights aspirants had been waiting for the perfect moment to further their cause.

Rosa Parks is an example of dramatic social change coming from committed, organized groups and not spontaneous outbursts of individual discontent.

There is no way to "get it right". By definition. The main reason is human nature. Or, in a nutshell, greed.

I cannot think of a single revolution, revolt or other change of government whose principles survived longer than its first generation. French revolution? Turned into a tyranny within years, even with its original designers. Russian revolution? I don't want to spark a discussion whether or not Lenin was a good guy or an asshole, but I think it's out of the question where Stalin stood.

Carter was the last President; after him, it has been a complete sham. One reason he had it so bad is because he went up stream against a system that was near death.

You only have power in a corrupt system as long as you go with the flow; it's empty power but it is enough to still attract tools. Like a C or B movie villain's 2nd in command, the second he falls out of line all that power does nothing to stop a dramatic (and cliche) example from being made of them.

Carter was already the liquidator, the system was rotten long before that. I dare say the last prez you had that was decent was Eisenhower. Oddly enough, since I'm neither very pro-military nor Republican. But he was a very level headed politician, he sure made a few rather tough decisions, but he never gave me the feeling that he made any for his personal gains or his cronies, he really strikes me as a man who wants to "serve his country", something that I not only expect but demand from a politician if he wants my respect.

The original paper is an interesting approach to studying power balances.

The summary is puerile flamebait.

The actual conclusion of the paper is simply that the power in government is not concentrated in massive grassroots organizations or in direct electoral representation, but rather it is concentrated in the small-but-vocal interest groups and economically influential individuals. In other words, causes, no matter how big, don't really get power until they can pay enough to be taken seriously. That might mean lobbying, marketing, or awareness campaigns, but it still takes money to look like your cause has merit.

That is indeed the main difference between a capitalist oligarchy and a plutocracy. Anyone who can get enough money would gain power in a plutocracy, but may not in an oligarchy. There may be some overlap between the systems, if the elite rulers of an oligarchy are selected primarily based on wealth, rather than family, ethnicity, history, or any other primary criterion. However, the paper notes that there is relatively little difference in power between elite individuals and special-interest gro

but rather it is concentrated in the small-but-vocal interest groups and economically influential individuals.

Actually, if you actually think about it, what the study amounts to is saying that political power is "concentrated" in the educated, older, upper middle class, if you can call have a moderate bias for the preferences of tens of millions of people a "concentration". That is, the kind of people who influence policy a bit more than others is the kind of people who become politicians, academics, and pr

Is that it's time to start killing our way through politicians until we find some who are properly terrified of the general populace enough to actually simulate honesty and do their job with minimal graft and corruption.

I learnt an interesting political lesson on my Commodore 64 back in the day.

There was this political sim called "Tyrant" (ancient descendant of Tropico, or civilisation), and you played as the dictator of a communist state.It was a pretty hard game, as most times the state would collapse and there'd be a revolution.

Eventually, after playing it long enough I managed to find the one way to prevent that state from ever collapsing and have it eternally make money.

Firstly, you had to invade all the surrounding countries and smash external threats.Then you convert to a democracy and install elections.Then you generate lots and lots of jobs for people in the secret policeThen you brainwash the populace with masses spent on election funding.With the population happy and brainwashed, you could raise the tax rate through the roof and no-one would care... also thanks to the huge secret police force they would turn on each other instead of resist the ridiculous taxation and the root cause of said taxation (thanks to election brainwashing)

I totally agree... but given that I don't believe the programmers ever intended a player to "beat the game", the fact that I found a loophole in the game to do just that AND given the bizarre police-state parallels the solution had, I thought it was interesting enough to post.

As usual. It implies that the views of 'average Americans' are abrogated by the economic elite. As the PDF clearly states on page 14 "It turns out, in fact, that the preferences of average citizens are positively and fairly highly correlated, across issues, with the preferences of the economic elites." It also turns out that the paper defines 'average American' as someone at the 50% income level, and 'economic elite' as someone at the 90% income level or above, which works out to $146,000. The paper than argues that this 'elite' population fairly represents the truly elite (the top 2%) based on 13 policy preference questions--which aren't listed in the paper--with a correlation of r=0.91 vs a correlation of r=0.69 for the 'average' population.

Sorry. There ain't nothing in this paper about the Koch brothers, Soros, Oprah, Bill Gates, or any of your other favorite elites. This is all about Joe the Plumber vs your mid-level Google executive.

So how does the paper define the views of the 'average American'? Well, on page 15, there's this "Some particular U.S. membership organizations--especially the AARP and labor unions--do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands that are unrelated (pro-life and pro-choice groups) or negatively related (gun owners) to what the average American wants." A footnote 40 then directs you to another paper by one of the same authors, presumably for the corroborating data.

Finally, on page 18, we encounter this: "Because of the impediments to majority rule that were deliberately built into the U.S. political system--federalism, separation of powers, bicameralism--together with further impediments due to anti-majoritarian congressional rules and procedures, the system has a substantial status quo bias. Thus when popular majorities favor the status quo, opposing a given policy change, they are likely to get their way; but when a majority--even a very large majority--of the public favors change, it is not likely to get what it wants."

In other words, here's the real summary: "Elite academic researchers at elite universities have conducted a study in which they find that the constitutional system put in place by the founders of the republic to prevent mob rule is thwarting their elite progressive agenda by working as intended. Oh, and throwing a lot of money around and making noise tends to draw attention to your cause, particularly when it aligns with the majority view, which it does most of the time."

It's virtually impossible to reach high office without being a millionaire or being bankrolled by a millionaire and other rich interest groups. It's virtually impossible to reach high office without belonging to one of two political parties. Is it any wonder at all that democracy has been corrupted?

It would be nice to see some practical proposals that could be implemented to remedy this.

Anyone that has had any real American history education knows this. Back in the 80's when I was in college that was taught to us in the American history classes, it was intentionally built that way. Just like how the founding fathers did not do all that Independence stuff out of the goodness of their heart, all of there were filthy wealthy and were trying like hell to protect their wealth.

Even in our (Australia's) supposedly modern democracy, politicians can say anything at all to get elected and can't be held to it once they are. And once they're in they can hide behind things like parliamentary privelege and say anything they like without having to prove it's true.

In Sydney we just arrested the State Premier for corruption over a bottle of wine. The system works. The Prime minister is not above the law in Australia. Something that the USA has never managed to sort out with their corrupt system. Nixon should have been jailed, but really the rot had started to set in long before then. The Greens in Australia are a credible threat to the Liberal and Labor parties. Unlike America, where there is no alternative political movement that can ever get into office. The minor parties in Australia actually get to set policy and ensure that the average person retains a speaking voice in our government.

You know, I think the surest way to keep politicians semi-honest is to have a multi-party system and its corollary, the minority government. Just in my own lifetime I've seen a prairie protest party (Social Credit by name, not nature) disappear, a major party on the right (Progressive Conservative) go from the largest parliamentary majority ever to extinction, a party that wants to break the country in two become the Official Opposition, another prairie protest party on the right (Reform) try to take national power, a socialist party (NDP) go from perennial third or fourth party status to being the Official Opposition, Canada's other major party, the Liberals, drop down to a poor third, the party on the right reconstitute itself, the Green Party get a member in parliament for the first time... And I'm simplifying. New parties are always bubbling up, and the three biggest parties go up and down and sometimes disappear.

Not only is the president immune from prosecution given the Nixon example, but none of the bank managers, presidents or CEO's were ever jailed for causing the last financial disaster. That if nothing else proves that the US is an Oligarchy.

You think Australia is free? Hahahaha! As If!We've got Bush 3.0 and some Tea Party rejects running the show down here, tearing everything positive and egalitarian down, selling off all of the public's assets, repealing racial discrimination laws, telling bald faced lies to the public and getting away with it because the media is complicit.

We're just a cheap copy of you guys now, the closest thing to freedom is in the Scandinavian countries I'd say.

Yes, we have elected a terrible government. However, there will be a massive voter backlash at the next election. Also, the government hasn't been able to pass all the legislation it wants because it is being blocked by minor parties in the senate. The fact is the majority of Australians voted for a shit government and that's what they're getting. They will however be stopped at the next election now that everyone realises just how terrible this government is. My sister is on $150k+ and even she hates the c

You can have a meaningful election. In almost all cases there are more than two boxes to check. For a change do not check the first two. Changing America can be quite simple, the first step is to get out of the current gridlock by introducing more parties and actual politics. I america the entire political spectrum is concentrated in two parties. For example the Tea Party, that is not a party they are Republicans! Why?! I don't agree with them, fine but they could do the first step and found an actual party

The US of A has NEVER been a Democracy, Our founding fathers knew that a Democracy was not the way to do proper government and framed what we are today called a Constitutional Republic.
What we have now is a twisted mess of a government that is controlled by the money not the people that it was intended to be controlled by.

Oh crying out loud, not this shit again? No wonder your country is so messed up. You are confusing structure with whether your representatives are elected democratically or not. China is a constitutional Republic as are a bunch of other republics around the world. You are confusing the structure of a government with how it is elected. There are various types of forms of government such as Republics, Parliamentary Systems and Parliamentary Republics. Some are partially democratic, completely democratic or undemocratic.

Finland is an example of a Parliamentary republic because it has an elected President as head of state and a unicameral parliament with a Prime Minister. Canada is an example of a Federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy where the Queen is the head of state and the Prime Minister is the leader of the winning party of parliamentary elections.

Sometimes I wonder how many people like to state that "The car body is made from steel" to make an argument the car was not blue. It seems to be some sentence once learned in some class or read in some book that reoccur again and again without ever being called in question. There are other themes (like: "Nikola Tesla is the most underreported inventor"), but this one always striked me as especially odd.

I once learned that Democracy is a measure of how easy it is to remove someone from power. If it require

I mostly agree, except this didn't start after World War I. The first things the founders did was restrict who could and couldn't vote. White male landowners. And in many places there was a wealth tax requirement to hold office. If you didn't have 1,000 pounds of wealth, you couldn't hold office in some states. Voting was effectively restricted to the top 10% of society, and holding office was for the 1%.

And there really was never a time when the working class wasn't being exploited. There were strikes and riots all through the 1800s, complete with harsh crackdowns by the national guard and private police forces. The robber barons of the gilded age were made fantastically wealthy on the backs of the poor. Things got briefly better thanks to the rise of unions in the first half of the 20th century, but we've been backsliding ever since Reagan.

Class warfare started the day one man said to another, "here's a boot, go stomp on that guy's face and I'll make things a little better for you," and it hasn't stopped yet. It will never stop until the last king and the last capitalist swing from a rope.